Kept
by on rooftops
Summary: Can I have you please? Just one more time, just once. — Albus/Scorpius - For Ela


**A/N:** For Ela, because she's awesome.  
Also, this _is_ slash - if you don't like it, don't read it.  
**Disclaimer:** Not mine.

**Kept**

Al bit his lower lip as he traced the words at the top of History of Magic essay, deepening the scribble and sending ink bleeding in furls across the parchment. He jumped when Lily collapsed into the seat across from him, dropping her bag on the table with a thud and sighing so loudly that Al was surprised Madame Pince didn't come swooping out from behind one of the stacks to shush her.

"Whatcha doing?" Lily glanced across the table at the paper and narrowed her eyes, ignoring his oh-so-inventive title of _The Goblin Rebellions_ and instead murmuring his mindless scribble aloud, "Can I have you please? Just one more time, just once." Al felt blood rushing to his face at the sound of his little sister voicing his plea, and flushed redder under her critical gaze. "Starting a career as a bad poet, Al?"

"No," he snapped, covering the still-damp words with his bare forearm. "It's nothing."

"Right," Lily laughed. "And I'm Godric Gryffindor. It is clearly _something_. Now, are you going to tell me what it is, or am I going to have to find out on my own?"

"You're going to leave it, Lily." Al pulled the parchment closer to him and tugged his wand out of his pocket. He attempted to clear the words from the page without letting his sister get another look at the smeared ink; he didn't want the whole essay to disappear, just the miserable evidence of his obsession.

But he had scratched the words so deeply in the paper that even after he had banished the ink they were still nearly legible. Lily would read them again and spread news of his "bad poetry" over the school in an hour. Or, not all over the school, not really, because she would slip her lips against some Hufflepuff's ear, whisper something about wanting to help her brother Albus get with the person he liked, and wait until the Hufflepuff spread that to another Hufflepuff, and then it would get to Ravenclaw and eventually to Slytherin and Gryffindor and all along Lily would keep her ears tuned to murmurings about her brother Al and his _lover_. She'd sort through the rubbish and figure out who the rumor mill of Hogwarts had been correct in pairing him with. Because Lily was nothing if not patient, if not inventive.

"Look." Al stretched his legs out beneath the table in attempted nonchalance, and Lily raised one red eyebrow at him. She wouldn't be fooled, but he had to try. "It's just song lyrics. It's embarrassing, really, a Muggle singer. Awful voice. Pathetic." He stuttered off into silence at the stillness of Lily's expression: her right eyebrow steady in its angled curve; her gray-blue eyes opaque and disbelieving; her mouth a twisted smirk.

"Right, Al. I'll sort it out on my own, then." She glanced over her shoulder and caught sight of Rose at the entrance to the library. She stood slightly, waving her arms to attract their cousin's attention and, when Rose didn't immediately join them, hissed, "Rosie, I need to talk to you." Madame Pince _still_ didn't arrive at their table, despite Al's fervent prayers to see her pinched face and have her toss Lily out of the library on her obnoxious arse. Maybe the old librarian was as terrified of his sister as the rest of the school – barring their Slytherin housemates and the more foolhardy Gryffindors, of course – appeared to be.

"What?" Rose dropped her bag beside Lily's but remained standing, one hand fisted in her curly hair and the other palm-down on the table. She wanted to go join Malfoy, Al could see it in her tense shoulders and the glare that she was dividing between him and Lily, as if she was unsure of whose fault it was that she was with her cousins instead of her best friend.

"Al's in love with someone," Lily said conspiratorially, "and they're having problems and he won't tell me who it is."

Rose didn't move, she just raised one eyebrow in an expression frighteningly similar to Lily's own and stared at her younger cousin. "Bound to happen sometime, wasn't it? Good luck with your girl, Al. Now, I told Scorpius I'd meet him to help him with Charms. Have either of you seen him?"

Al rolled his eyes. Scorpius hadn't needed help with Charms in months. But Malfoy wouldn't dare tell Rose that she wasn't necessary. Lily noticed Al's eye-roll, and she considered him for a moment while Rose craned her neck until she caught sight of Scorpius's white-blond head a few tables over, nearly concealed by the tall bookshelf that divided one section of tables from the other.

"I'll see you later," Rose said, picking up her bag and skirting the stacks to join her friend.

Lily was two seconds behind her, and Al heard her say in such a sweet tone he was shocked that lightning didn't rip through the stone wall and disintegrate her with one electric strike, "Rose, Scorpius, why don't you come join me and Al? I haven't talked to you guys in _ages_."

"Lily, we're going to be going over Charms. You don't want to have to listen to that," Rose's tone was longsuffering, and Al smiled at his parchment. Sometimes his Gryffindor cousin was just as stubborn as his Slytherin sister.

"Oh, come _on_. Otherwise I'll sit here and talk nonstop so you won't get any work done at all." Al sighed. Lily needed to stop meddling.

And then Scorpius spoke, and the bastard's voice – soft and deep in the quiet of the library – still quickened Al's heartbeat. "Good thing we both know silencing charms then, isn't it? Go keep Albus company, Lily."

That was the wrong thing to say. Al didn't even need to turn to know that Lily had her hands on her hips, her eyes narrowed, her face pale with righteous anger. "Did you just threaten to _silence_ me, Scorpius Malfoy? I'd like to see you fucking try."

"Lily, go on, leave it," Rose begged. "You know Scorpius, he doesn't mean half of what he says."

"No," Lily's voice dropped and Al had to inch his chair closer to the stacks to hear her. "I'll bet he doesn't."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Scorpius sounded exasperated, almost the way he had when Al had come across him that night by the lake. He had been chucking rocks toward the ripples left by the giant squid and sending volatile curses into the air so rapidly that Al swore he could almost feel the sharp edges of the words jabbing at his skin as he approached. Then, it had been about his cousin. Now it was his sister. Al was sometimes shocked that Scorpius even bothered associating with the Potter-Weasleys, he seemed unbearably frustrated whenever he spent any time around them.

Lily sighed loudly and Al peeked through the crack at the top of the books to see that Rose was staring up at Lily with a curious expression on her face. Scorpius's white head was tilted so that his smooth hair fell back toward the nape of his neck, and his hands were fists on the tabletop. Al was surprised that the blonde's wand remained sticking from his bag on the floor by his feet – he would have guessed from his stance that Scorpius was ready to curse his sister to pieces.

Lily glared down at Scorpius, "I think you know. And if you don't, just think for a bit. Do you _really_ need help with Charms, Malfoy? Or has someone else already helped you?"

Well, fuck. Al hadn't thought Lily was quite that perceptive.

Scorpius stood. "No," he snapped. "I still need Rose's help. We'll sit with you and Albus. Come on, Rose. Your cousin's as bossy as my bloody father."

Al gathered his books together, rolling his parchment up and stuffing it all into the worn bag his Aunt Hermione had given him when he got his letter to Hogwarts. Lily would be suspicious at his sudden exit, he knew, but she apparently knew everything anyway, so what did that really matter if it saved him an hour or two of uncomfortable silence? Or, even worse, an hour or two of Lily's leading hints.

"Where're you going?" Rose asked, sitting down at the seat next to him as he stood, and Al focused his attention on his cousin, determinedly not looking at Scorpius as he took the last seat at the circular table.

"I'd forgotten, Alice Wood wanted me to fly with her – she's trying to get the Wronski Feint down and it's not going so well." The lie slipped from his tongue so easily that he thought even Lily might actually fall for it.

But then she shook her head. "It's like thirty below zero out there, Albus. You and Alice will not be flying today. And I know for a fact you're not finished with your History of Magic essay, so sit your arse back down."

"Lily!" Rose whispered, clearly anxious to make one of her cousins leave the library so her study time wouldn't be interrupted by their continuous bickering. "What if Alice is the girl Al's pining over? Don't you want them to spend time together?"

Albus wasn't looking at Scorpius, he wasn't, but he did notice how one pale, long fingered hand clenched around his eagle feather quill at Rose's question. It relaxed a bit when Lily said with certainty, "She isn't."

"Oh, so in the last five minutes you've figured out Al's girlfriend? I didn't even see you go near any Hufflepuffs." Because Lily was nothing if not predictable.

Lily gasped in mock offense. "I don't need Hufflepuffs," she informed Rose, her tone on the very edge of haughty, "I'm a Slytherin. We use our _eyes_."

Scorpius's hands were fists again, and Lily turned to face him. "You know too, don't you Malfoy? You're not a Slytherin, but you could have been. You've got the right blood for it. So you know, don't you?" Al was surprised that the air between Lily and Scorpius didn't sizzle into acidic flames as the words fell caustically from her mouth. If he had been looking at Scorpius, he was sure there would have been some shadow of fear in his gray eyes. The color would have darkened the way they had during that Quidditch match, the one where Al's struggle to catch the Quaffle before it soared through the Slytherin hoops had left him in a broken mess on the ground, and the last thing he saw before he passed out were the Ravenclaw seeker's terrified eyes.

Al swung his bag over his shoulder and hissed, "Malfoy's clueless, Lily. If you know, why won't you leave it alone?"

"Because," he hadn't heard her this serious in ages, not since he overheard her comforting Teddy after his breakup with Victoire, "some secrets don't need to be kept."

She looked up at him from her seat at the table, her eyes honest and comforting and unfamiliar in their easy, uncritical light. He shook his head, conscious of Rose and Scorpius watching them – Rose undoubtedly confused and Scorpius undoubtedly pissed. Al couldn't respond there, couldn't ask Lily what she meant, or what she was thinking, or how she thought that everything could be made right by a little honesty, because wasn't that the antithesis of the Slytherin's mantra? Honesty was bullshit and lies were the lifeblood of society, that's what he had always thought. So he shook his head and muttered, "I'll see you in the common room tonight."

He refused to look at Rose and Scorpius as he walked unhurriedly out of the library, and he only started running when he knew the sound of his footsteps on the stone floor wouldn't echo back down the corridor and inform Malfoy just how deeply he had let himself care. He didn't make it very far down the corridor, though; he didn't even make it down the first flight of stairs toward the Slytherin common room. He turned into the first abandoned classroom he came to, shut the door behind him with a crash, and slammed his fist into the stone wall.

"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck." He accompanied each swear with a punch to the wall, and if his fingers felt a bit shaky, looked a bit raw after each consecutive hit, what did it matter? Broken bones could be cured in an instant, bloody knuckles rubbed clean with carefully applied salve – it was those bloody girly feelings, those fucking emotions, that he was anxious to beat out of himself.

But then he heard the creak of the door opening and the click of it shutting over his cursing and wall-attacking and he pressed his palms into the stone, leaned his forehead forward against the cool wall and shut his eyes, praying that it was just his little sister.

"You know, most people would consider punching the wall certifiably insane." The voice was snide, cynical, cruel and cutting. It was Scorpius, of course it was – how could he have even hoped for Lily, when the universe so clearly had it out for him?

"Most people would know that someone punching a wall doesn't want to be disturbed," Al responded, his tone cool as he spoke to the stones in front of him.

"What's going on, Albus?" Scorpius never liked to keep their conversations on the surface for too long; the bastard had made him talk about his bloody emotions the night he had nearly murdered that fifth year for talking shit about Lily.

"I'm punching a wall."

Scorpius sighed, and Albus heard him move. He half expected to feel the familiar hands at his shoulders, to feel the long fingers trace the line of his spine and draw circles along his ribs; he half expected to feel those lips against his ear, to hear that voice dip low and seductive – to be on the floor in seconds, to lose the pain of the last five weeks in the feeling of Scorpius beneath him.

Instead, he heard a chair scrape against the floor and the creak of the wood as Scorpius sat down on it. The other boy was probably watching his back, searching for some sign of surrender, of weakness; he was probably waiting for him to turn around. Albus refused. He would not give in.

"Yes, Albus," Scorpius finally spoke, the same condescending tone he had used when they were in second year and Al hadn't known how to get mandrakes out of the soil. "I can see that you are – or, _were _– punching a wall. I would like to know why."

_Because you're a fucking bastard_. "No reason."

"Okay, we'll assume that you felt the sudden urge to beat an innocent wall into submission. I have more pressing questions, anyway." He paused for effect, and Al wondered for the millionth time what had possessed the bloody arrogant git to ask the Sorting Hat to put him in Ravenclaw. He had Slytherin burning in every word that fell from his tongue. "Would you mind explaining to me how Lily knows?"

"How Lily knows what, Malfoy?" Because Al hadn't had to ask the Hat to put him anywhere. It had known where he belonged the second it sensed the workings of his brain beneath its tattered brim.

"Come on, Potter. You told her, didn't you? Couldn't keep one secret from your precious sister, could you?"

Al pressed his hands and forehead against the stone so deeply that he could feel ridged lines forming on his skin. He couldn't whirl and curse Malfoy against the far wall – that was what the bastard wanted. Face to face, Albus was weak. Face to face, Malfoy could manipulate him without meaning to. And when he meant to…well, Albus was as good as gone.

So, ignoring the other boy's belligerent tone, he asked, "If I didn't tell Lily seven months ago, why the _fuck_ would I tell her now?"

Malfoy could have used that as his opening. He could have ripped Al to shreds with a few choice words. All he really needed to say was, _Because you needed to cry on her shoulder when I called it off, _and Al would know – with certainty – that their conversation (shouting match, whatever) of five weeks ago was the whole truth. That seven months meant nothing more to Malfoy than prolonged teenage experimentation. That he had pitied Al too much to end it when he first wanted to. A few words, aimed with the precision of the bloody Ravenclaw's traitorous tongue, and Al would _know_. So he waited, waited for Malfoy to spit razor sharp words at his back.

But he didn't. "You're saying Lily figured it out on her own? How would she do that?" A pause. "Why would she even _think_ to do that? Why the sudden interest today?"

Al thought about the words at the top of his paper, about the near-legible smudge of ink on his forearm, about the memories of strong hands and soft lips that had been keeping him awake at night for weeks. _Can I have you please? Just one more time, just once._ "She's Lily." And shouldn't that explain everything?

"Yes, yes, Al." Scorpius was impatient, "She's Lily, she's all-knowing, we're all used to the folklore surrounding your little sister. But didn't you yourself tell me she never notices anything unless something suggests to her that there's something to_ be_ noticed? So what made her notice us?"

"There is no bloody _us_!" Al opened his eyes and turned to find Scorpius lounging in a chair, one long leg extended and the other bent comfortably, his right arm thrown over the back of the chair and his left hand playing disinterestedly with his wand by his thigh. His lips were curved in a self-satisfied smirk and why the _fuck_ had Albus left the comfortable protection of the wall?

"Clearly," Scorpius said dryly. "Although, if that's true, what are we talking about here?"

"I didn't ask you to come after me. How'd you explain it to Rose, anyway? _Oh, sorry, Rose darling, must dash off and use the loo? _Or _Oh, that Albus. I'll just go play good Samaritan and make sure he's not sniveling like an infant in a corner somewhere, shall I_?"

"I don't need to explain myself to Rose." And there, _there_ was that temper. "I don't need to explain myself to anyone."

"No, really. What'd you tell her?" Albus moved forward, his walk a near swagger. "Seven months ago you could barely tell her that you weren't interested in her. Five months ago you couldn't tell her that I gave you a crash course in Charms and that you don't need her help anymore. Four months ago you couldn't tell her that your owl ate her favorite rabbit. Three months ago you _didn't_ tell her that you're allergic to chocolate, and so you ended up in the hospital wing. And five weeks ago," Al stopped moving. He stood directly in front of Scorpius and he glared down at him, feeling almost satisfied to see the merest sign of fear in Malfoy's eyes, "Five weeks ago you chose her. So tell me, Malfoy, how did you explain _this_?"

Scorpius stood abruptly, his hands shot out to fasten on Al's shoulders and he glared down his nose into Al's eyes – the fear disintegrated in the presence of some stronger emotion. Al made to shake Scorpius off but the taller boy's hands tightened. "I told her that I needed to talk to you."

"And what'd she say to that?"

"It doesn't matter. I came."

"That's such bullshit. It always matters. Rose _always_ mattered, Malfoy. Her friendship means more to you than anything. I understood that. For a long time, I accepted that. So," Al reached up and gripped Scorpius's wrists in his hands, jerking the clinging fingers from his shoulders and backing up a few steps. "What. Did. Rose. Say?"

Scorpius lowered his head and pinched the bridge of his nose in a familiar gesture that never failed to send thrills of lust through Al's veins. The bastard. "She said," Scorpius began, his voice muffled, "She said that she didn't understand. She thought we didn't like each other."

"And what did you say?"

"Albus, I didn't come here to talk to you about Rose."

"_What did you say_?"

"Lily – no, Al, I'm getting there, hear me out – Lily called Rose a fucking idiotic blind Gryffindor. And then I told Rose that I had never disliked you, but that you might hate me."

"And?" Albus prompted, even though Scorpius was looking at him again, his eyes searching his face for some sign that Al didn't hate him. Al was not going to give him that satisfaction; he refused to fall easily into the familiar pattern of his past mistakes.

Scorpius sighed in frustration, "And Rose asked us what the hell we were talking about and Lily looked about ready to hit her over the head with her Potions textbook. I told your cousin that I l-_liked_ you."

Albus stared at him in silence for a long moment. Then he asked incredulously, "In the library. You told Rose that we had been fucking while you were in the bloody _library_? That'll be all over the school by dinner."

"Aren't you listening, Potter? I did _not_ tell Rose that we had ever been together, I just told her that I liked you. And weren't you the one who wanted to tell everyone about us? Why do you care if the whole school knows?"

"But we're not _us_, Scorpius!" Albus grabbed Scorpius by the shoulders and clenched his fingers into his blue tee-shirt. "We're not us! You can't just act like we're something, when you've made it clear that you don't want us to be together."

"I was wrong." Scorpius spoke softly, his eyes focused on the collar of Al's shirt, or maybe on the pounding pulse-point in his neck, but certainly not on Al's livid green eyes. "I was wrong, okay? Can't we just be normal again?"

"What the fuck do you mean you were wrong?" Al pushed Scorpius's back a few steps, until the other boy's legs hit the seat of his chair and he would have fallen back into it if Al's grip on his shoulders hadn't been so tight. "You can't just say that, Scorpius. This isn't something you can fix that easily."

Scorpius's hands were clenched in fists, and Al wished that he would punch him. He wished that they could hit each other until both of them were exhausted, until neither of them had the energy to fight anymore and they could just lie on the stone floor and not talk, not fight or argue or even think, but just be.

But Scorpius had never hit him, and Al knew he wasn't about to start now.

"When I told you that I didn't want you anymore, that it wasn't…worth it." Oh, so he had known how that one simple word, that stupid, one syllable word, had cut at Al's soul until he could barely function. He had _chosen_ the word "worth" because Scorpius knew that Al only wanted to be worth something. Al had hoped the word had been a mistake, an unintentional slip of the tongue. "I was wrong. I thought…I was stupid."

"What did you think?" Al managed to keep his voice controlled and cool with some effort, suddenly grateful for years of arguments with Lily and his parents.

"I thought we'd just stop fucking, but that we would stay friends. I thought it'd be better. That you and Rose and I could all be friends and we wouldn't have to lie and sneak around anymore."

"That _was _stupid."

"I know, okay? I know. But I wasn't prepared for you to stop speaking to me. To stop looking at me. What was that about? Why did you act like I repulsed you?"

"Fuck, Scorpius. Why do you think?"

"I'm not ashamed of us."

"You were, though." Albus's lips were dangerously close to Scorpius's, his hands were too gentle on the wing-like shoulder blades, his fingers too kind in their circular massages. He tried to still his movements, but something deep inside was controlling him.

"I was scared," Scorpius conceded. "I'm still scared. But I was never ashamed."

And then Al's lips were on Scorpius's in a bruising kiss, all teeth and tongue and familiar tastes and sounds, and was forgiveness really such a bad thing? Was it so wrong to fix what had been broken?

Scorpius's hands fumbled with the button on his trousers and Al's tugged at the blue tee-shirt and Quidditch-roughened hands met familiar favorite spots and the harshness of their words evened out into simple misunderstandings as their tongues smoothed and abused sensitive skin.

**A/N:** I appreciate reviews!


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